City life in Korea

Planned so as not to invade the mountains, South Korean cities usually tend to emerge in plains and valleys, extending in huge apartment blocks designed in such a uniform style that the architecture recalls the former USSR communist systems. The modern Korean Urbanism is functional and practical. It seems to respond, first of all, to the productive needs of a country conditioned by the global competitiveness and the long-term race against its economical gigantic neighboring: China and Japan.

Although its modern urban architecture usually does not draw attention, what it does is that which one is missing. In Korean cities there are no graffitis painted on the walls, no rubbish in the streets, vandalism, noise, nor dustbins. But if we take time to observe, we can perceive the contained social tension expressed through the enormous gap between genders, with the male's drunkennesses after working hours, in the ubiquitous internet gaming rooms full of disconnected young people, in its teenagers overdosed with teddy bears, in its compulsive smoking, in its neon christian crosses and in the abusive study schedule that chains younger generations to the culture of working just to serve the wildest capitalism.. -- Oriol Casanovas